low me to introduce you to Paul and his wife. They would be charmed to
make your acquaintance."

"Thank you," he replied a trifle coldly; "I'd rather not know them--in
the present circumstances."

"Why, how strange you are!" the girl exclaimed, looking up into his face,
so dark and serious. "I don't see why you should entertain such an
aversion to being introduced to Paul. He's quite a dear fellow."

"Perhaps it is a foolish reluctance on my part," he laughed uneasily.
"But, somehow, I feel that to remain away from the chateau is best.
Remember, your stepfather and your mother are in ignorance of--well, of
the fact that we regard each other as--as more than close friends. For
the present it is surely best that I should not visit your relations.
Relations are often very prompt to divine the real position of affairs.
Parents may be blind," he laughed, "but brothers-in-law never."

"You are always so dreadfully philosophical!" the girl cried, glad that
at last that painful topic of conversation had been changed. "Paul Le
Pontois wouldn't eat you!"

"I don't suppose any Frenchman is given to cannibalistic diet," he
answered, smiling. "But the fact is, I have my reasons for not being
introduced to the Le Pontois family just now."

The girl looked at him sharply, surprised at the tone of his response.
She tried to divine its meaning. But his countenance still bore that
sphinx-like expression which so often caused his friends to entertain
vague suspicions.

Few men could read character better than Walter Fetherston. To him the
minds of most men and women he met were as an open book. To a marvellous
degree had he cultivated his power of reading the inner working of the
mind by the expression in the eyes and on the faces of even those
hard-headed diplomats and men of business whom, in his second character
of Mr. Maltwood, he so frequently met. Few men or women could tell him a
deliberate lie without its instant detection. Most shrewd men possess
that power to a greater or less degree--a power that can be developed by
painstaking application and practice.

Enid asked her companion when they were to meet again.

"At least let me see you before you go from here," she said. "I know what
a rapid traveller you always are."

"Yes," he sighed. "I'm often compelled to make quick journeys from one
part of the Continent to the other. I am a constant traveller--too
constant, perhaps, for I've nowadays grown very world-weary and